Because dirt stains such as dust, grime, oil smoke, and tobacco tar adhere to surfaces of various articles used indoors or outdoors, such as home electrical appliances, various methods of preventing the attachment or adherence of this dirt have peen proposed. For example, methods for preventing lipophilic dirt from adhering to the surface of an article and facilitating the removal of lipophilic dirt from the surface of an article, by coating the surface of the article with an antistatic agent or an oil repellent fluororesin are well known. However, the above-mentioned methods face the problem that the coating film coated on the article easily peels, and hence the long-term maintenance of dirt prevention properties cannot be expected.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, a method for long term maintenance of dirt prevention properties by forming a coating film in which hydrophilic parts and hydrophobic parts are exposed independently of each other in a very small area have been attempted. For example, a dirt prevention coating composition that is capable of micro-dispersing and exposing an inorganic oxide containing a photocatalytic oxide and a hydrophobic resin have been proposed. (See, for example, Patent Document 1)
Patent Document 1: JP 2001-88247 A